In the midst of Lars Martin Myhre's still creative life, occasions to celebrate milestone anniversaries are starting to pour in at his house in Sandefjord. It's now 20 years since the release of "Sometimes It's All Right", 40 years since he started making a full-time living from music at the age of 19, and next year it's 60 years since he tested his voice live for the very first time.
/ 16/09/2015 / codexText: Kai Lofthus, photo: Willy Martinsen
Without Lars Martin Myhre's artistic conviction and cunning insistence after 14 previous years of collaboration with Odd Børretzen, the 1995 hit of the year (Spellemann Prize, 1996) and the Norwegian hit of the time (Spellemann Prize's 30th anniversary, 2001) would have been a completely different song than "Sometimes it's all right". The commercial elite in the record market at that time were artists who made completely different music than combining jazz, songs and talk, thus challenging any perception of the relationship between quality and popularity.
Myhre recently did an hour-long interview with us about everything from his musical upbringing to his membership here. In connection with a conversation about recording costs, he elaborated on the germ of the self-financed hit album – recorded in NRK's Studio 20 at Marienlyst – and the financial framework they had to deal with:
– I don't remember the budget, but after five years of nagging I convinced Odd that we should make a record. We got money from the cassette fee fund in 1990, but Odd thought it was just nonsense. He didn't think anyone would be interested in any new music. But every time we went somewhere, at NRK or elsewhere, we made something. When we were at the Shellfish Festival in Mandal we made "I hate seagulls" and at the Wooden Boat Festival we made "Sometimes it's all right". We eventually had a lot of good stuff, so I eventually changed tactics and said to him: it would have been a bit of fun if the grandchildren could hear what we were doing? Yes, yes, we might be able to get rid of a few, he said. He had never sold more than 800 copies, only to those who were interested. He had money in the bank, and then we had just received support of 50.000,-. But we didn't want to get the cassette fee money until afterwards, so we went to DnB and asked if we could get a bank loan for just a few months while we were recording that album. They flatly refused, you know (laughter). It was quite funny in retrospect, because then they said: "erre no lads, just say so". Yes, well yes! The budget was maybe 50-60.000, -, but it ended up being longer afterwards since we paid extra to the musicians as it took off, he says. Fond for erføreende kunstende and NOPA also supported the release.
– Incidentally, I've never thought about finances when I start a project I want to do – the other half of my brain takes care of that, he clarifies.
The album consists of lyrics signed by Børretzen and melodies by Myhre, with the exception of "Sjømannsvals", where Børretzen's lyrics were accompanied by a melody by Tony Joe White. In addition to the originality, they received unique support on the media front:
– We made an agreement with NRK where each song became a feature on Reiseradioen the summer before the album was released, where we sat in Odd's boat and talked.
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Some people seem to believe that music is something that comes from the major record labels, fabricated by “pressing a few buttons.” Lars Martin Myhre’s discography is one of countless examples of how personal the creative work is, and scientifically speaking, the music could not have been created without his parents and the role that singing and music played at home in Tønsberg.
– When my mother and father visited, and there was a party, we sang. It was before NRK and TV. No one knew anything special, there were three guitar strings and a little accordion. My father played a little fiddle, but it was mostly to get people going, and it turned out to be effective! I became very interested in that joy of music, and my sister, who was three years older, used to bring home records, it was in the 60s, he says.
He got his first guitar at the age of 12-13 and soon began to write his own songs and form bands. When he needed money for a new guitar, he got a job at Leif Kjørboe's hardware store, still in Tønsberg.
– I had a rule for myself that I had to work on music for at least three hours during working hours, so I had hidden music theory books around the store. They still found books 10 years after I quit! And then I continued working on music for at least three hours when I got home. I kept doing that for two years. One day the jazz saxophonist Bernt Brinck-Johnsen came into the store and said: I've heard you play guitar! It wasn't that bad; do you want to be in a band? That led to me playing at Pizzanini every Thursday, with people who had played with, among others, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. There was no money in it, but I got stage experience when I was 16-17, and I found jazz, he says.
In 1981, the collaboration with Børretzen, who was then well-established as a 54-year-old humorist, comedian and author, began. That summer they had a gig together for inmates and staff at Sem district prison. The collaboration then flourished with NRK jobs, gigs and tours. Two years after the release of "Noen ganger er det all right" in 1995, it had sold over 150.000 copies. Børretzen himself did not think it would sell more than 800, while Myhre tipped 1,200 units. Dagbladet's Tom Stalsberg wrote that it "is not (something) for the sales charts, but a warm friend in the autumn darkness". Their four studio albums and two compilation albums have now sold close to half a million records.
But the collaboration with Børretzen has been far from the only one with brilliant writers: Arild Nyquist and Gro Dahle have been other close collaborators. The collaboration with Nyquist took place in parallel and just as much with him during the 20 years with Børretzen. Another one that Myhre highlights is Ingvar Hovland, whom he calls his closest collaborator today. – Ingvar is one of our leading lyricists, who has worked with, among others, Vamp and Rita Eriksen, and he writes most of the lyrics on the records where I perform my own material, partly in collaboration with me, he says.
Since Myhre has worked so much with jazz, does that also mean that his recordings are characterized by improvisation?
– The big paradox is that I was much more prepared and had things written down before. There was probably a bit of a need for control, I think. Now I often do it the other way around, and it's a bit challenging; when does it go from being creative to being executive?
He describes the ideal recording situation as follows:
– I bring my friends, a core group, into a big studio with room for a lot of people. Then we record the basics based on the ideas I come up with, and then there are a lot of wonderful, creative people who are so generous that they use their creativity to make it the best possible record. I would be a fool if I overdid it. So I see what happens and then I take a long break after the recordings to think through all the parts, he says.
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What was it like recording the album "Livets vann" (2013) in an era when songs are often created and released for a streaming-based economy?
– There you have the difference between long form and short form. Novelists may think a bit the same way as I do sometimes: Why didn’t I write poetry instead? I like the short form too, but as you say, I want to put it in context. The water of life is long form. The funny thing is that when I work with the long form, make graphic scores and mess around .. I never write as many little songs as I do then! I can be tempted to run away, to scuttle off, because I get so tired of the big project. But if you don’t turn on the TV then, and instead sit down at the piano and continue working, it can be so nice! Eyvind Skeie had a very nice name for it: he called it “escape energy”. It is very fruitful for each other to work in both the long form and the song form.
He developed a particularly good relationship with TONO early on, where in addition to being a member he has also been a deputy member of the board, and now sits on the election committee. The revelation about what was then formally called the “Norwegian Composers’ Association’s international music agency TONO” came after a certain rebellious mentality was revealed.
– There was something called the Vestfold Rock Championship, and we wanted to be alternative and boycott it. In the 70s, it was fashionable to boycott things. So we arranged a concert in Tønsberg where everyone played their own music, and then we were very keen to avoid paying the TONO fee. I think we also avoided it. During that process, I became aware that TONO was not the police or the state, or that it was about a tax. I understood that it was possible to register our works, and that we could get a settlement on it whether we played them ourselves or others did. TONO money was absolutely fantastic! You had no idea how much it was going to be, or if there was anything at all. We couldn't count on anything, it was like a betting win, which was positive: money that you know you're getting, you've already used up! It also did something to your self-esteem to get a settlement. You felt like a composer, it was proof that you were a composer or lyricist, and that someone had paid for your music. TONO became my first connection to a national music scene. The first thing I did on a record was in 1983, and that's when I became aware of the sister organization NCB, he says.
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After all these years, he is still working with music. Since around 2000, his main project – both as a composer and performer – has been what he calls Myhre Sings Myhre, where he first began singing his own songs. His solo career as an artist of his own material includes "10 songs", "Closing time?", "Sibelius' Ättende, eller so far vi har reist for å komme til kort" and "A night with Olson and Strand". His second artistic career is the larger works; the large form: "Hush" and "Livets vann – Et vannverk". He has been involved in well over 50 records, including as producer for, among others, Halvdan Sivertsen, Anna Wirsén and Heidi Gjermundsen Broch.
We can expect another new album next year, called "His Majesty", but he doesn't exactly have any ambitions to break into the US.
– I once got a phone call from a man saying that his wife had died that day, at the age of 43. The last thing she said to him was, can you ask Myhre if he can come to my funeral and sing that comforting song? He said that she had been listening to that record as long as she was awake for the past week. After the funeral, they thanked and thanked, and when I drove away I thought: Father, I should thank you. I don't think any list placement can compete with that!